Puerto Rican Master Address File
Banking Regulation Compliance
American Community Survey
Carrier Route Boundaries
Boundary Data
Puerto Rico School Boundary Data

Puerto Rican Master Address File

The U.S. Census Bureau maintains a national Master Address File (MAF). The MAF was constructed by a computer match of the U.S. Postal Service Delivery Sequence File (DSF), the 1990 Census Address Control File (CACF), and the Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) files. Thereafter, periodic updates from the USPS DSF, census surveys, and field listing activities keep the MAF current. The Puerto Rican MAF was developed by address listing the entire island.

The MAF is critically important because it is used as a sampling frame for all Bureau of the Census demographic surveys, ACS, and the decennial census.

In December of 1999, SeekData, working as a sub-contractor, was awarded an initial Task Order from the U.S. Census Bureau to address standardize, match and geocode addresses from Puerto Rico. These addresses were collected as part of Census 2000 coverage improvement programs (i.e., Be Counted Program and Telephone Questionnaire Assistance Program).

Subsequent to the initial Task Order, SeekData was awarded additional Task Order modifications to solve a myriad of Puerto Rican address issues:

• To help the U.S. Census Bureau enhance the structure of the MAF to handle the unique addressing conventions in Puerto Rico.
• To help U.S. Census Bureau staff better understand those unique addressing conventions.

In the process of effecting these objectives, SeekData updated the Census Bureau data in compliance with the assigned Task Order but did not merge its proprietary data files with any Title 13 protected data.

Back to Top

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) is intended to encourage depository institutions to meet the credit needs of the communities in which they operate, including low and moderate-income neighborhoods. It was enacted by Congress in 1977 (12 U.S.C. 2901) and is implemented by Regulations 12 CFR parts 25, 228, 345 and 563e.

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) provides the public with loan data that can be used in determining whether financial institutions are serving the housing needs of their communities and identifying possible discriminatory lending patterns. It was enacted by Congress in 1975 and is implanted by the Federal Reserve Board's Regulation C.

The regulations implementing the CRA and the HMDA require financial institutions to report the geographic location (geocode) of their loan applications or collateral for residential mortgages, commercial mortgages and other small business/farm loans.

The leading provider of CRA and HMDA compliance software and data, with over 2000 banks as customers, including 90 of the top 100 banks in the U.S., found that geocoding software and data they were using would not give them compliance quality results in Puerto Rico. SeekData was selected to provide a customized, compliance quality, data and software solution.

Back to Top

The American Community Survey (ACS) is a new approach, developed by the U.S. Census Bureau, for collecting accurate and timely information needed for critical government functions.

Pending Congressional funding, ACS when fully implemented, will collect the detailed demographic data traditionally gathered on the decennial census long-form from 3 million households per year. The 3 million survey households will be drawn from every county, American Indian and Native Alaskan area, and Hawaiian Homeland, as well as Puerto Rico. This data will provide detailed characteristics about our nation, updated every year, rather then only once every ten years. Full implementation of the ACS will enable the 2010 Census to collect only short-form information.

Each month the U.S. Census Bureau will select a systematic sample of addresses from their most current MAF for the ACS. The MAF serves as the main source of the housing unit sample for the ACS. In addition, the housing unit counts contained in the MAF play an important part in the editing, weighting, and data tabulation process. Thus, the overall accuracy of the MAF is of paramount concern to the U.S. Census Bureau.

A critical element in the overall success of the American Community Survey is the ability to keep the U.S. Census Bureau's MAF up-to-date and accurate from year to year. Because of the unique addressing conventions and the inconsistent nature of Puerto Rican address data, SeekData, performing as a subcontractor, was awarded the task of adding new addresses, updating and correcting existing addresses in the Puerto Rico MAF. The task was performed under SeekData's Title 13 clearance.

Back to Top

SRC, LLC, based in Orange, Calif., is a leading provider of web-based, integrated micromarketing solutions that maximize the combination of proprietary SRC technology and third-party data. With its online subscription services such as DemographicsNow.com and proprietary data allocation and profiling tools, the company enables its Fortune 500 clients to leverage comprehensive demographic and geographic information about customers and markets to optimize geography-based sales, marketing and strategic planning processes.

When developing a micromarketing solution for a Fortune 500 media client, SRC needed current, reliable, Puerto Rican boundary data down to the individual postal carrier's route. SRC found SeekData to be the only source for current data of this nature.

Back to Top

Since the early 1990's, the magnitude and location of an earthquake have been available within minutes on the Internet. Now, as a result of work by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and with the cooperation of various regional seismic networks, people who experience an earthquake can go online and share information about its effects to help create a map of shaking intensities and damage. Such "Community Internet Intensity Maps" (CIIM's) contribute greatly in quickly assessing the scope of an earthquake emergency, even in areas lacking seismic instruments. In regions with few earthquakes and, hence, few seismic instruments, which includes most of the United States and most of the world, large numbers of intensity observations for a small to moderate event can indicate which areas will be more prone to shaking in the less frequent larger earthquakes.

After a damaging earthquake in those sparsely instrumented areas, CIIM's can provide information about which areas experienced the most shaking and therefore the most potential damage. This information can serve as a post-earthquake response tool and for estimating losses from future earthquakes.

Most areas of the United States, even many of those prone to earthquakes, do not have dense seismic networks. For such areas, CIIM's provide the only rapid way to assess the distribution of shaking intensities and levels of damage. This quick information can aid in making the most effective use of emergency response resources and assist in preparing for future earthquakes.

SeekData provided the USGS with boundary data for: Guam, The Federated States of Micronesia, American Samoa, Marshall Islands, Mariana Islands (Saipan, Rota, Tinian), and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Back to Top

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity responsible for collecting and analyzing data that are related to American education from pre-kindergarten through graduate school in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Reliable data on how well the American education system and its students perform are critical in guiding efforts to improve education.

NCES developed its school local code classification to provide a variable for general description, sampling, and other statistical purposes related to the collection, tabulation and analysis of data relating to individual schools. NCES classifies each school based on the physical location of the school.

The American Community Survey (ACS) special tabulations allows for the analysis of factors associated with school success, and progress toward high school graduation or a college degree in Puerto Rico, but was hindered by having only one data record covering the entire island. The population of Puerto Rico in Census 2000 was approximately that of Nebraska, Maine, and North Dakota combined. Yet, the school district special tabulation provided Puerto Rico only a single boundary data record.

While in national terms all of Puerto Rico belongs to one district, Puerto Rico educational service areas and school district equivalents for Puerto Rico are defined by NCES. Locally on the island, the agencies assigned public schools to 1 of 84 districts and those 84 districts to 10 regions. SeekData was tasked with geocoding all public schools and developing geographic boundaries for the districts and regions commonly used by NCES and other government agencies.

Back to Top